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There seems to have been an increase in searches, shakedowns, and seizures this past Fall in particular, as was noted in the article. I experienced harassment flying in to Newark from Berlin in September. Newark was bad. The East Coast seems to have been especially bad. I'm only grateful I wasn't carrying a guitar, just the mixer, mics, stands, and a laptop. Ironically, none of the travel between London, Paris, or Berlin was problematic in the least. I say that, because 2 weeks later flying between Denver and Phoenix, I saw little evidence of any increased vigilance. Last week I was traveling between San Diego and Denver and had no problems whatsoever (except, in leaving out of Denver, I had to do the nudie scan and they, politely, reminded me to remove my passport from my shirt pocket). It's hard to tell, as the rhetoric can get pretty heavy from both sides. A lot of civil libertarians are quick to cite stories from several years ago, but there have been some changes on the other side. Most of the TSA workers do NOT want to be groping people all day long, so they have to deal with crappy morale. The press is lousy when it comes to getting accurate information, but Glenn Greenwald is a pretty careful writer when it comes to verifying his sources and stating things in a calm and reasoned manner. SO I listen to him pretty carefully. If you're going to be flying (especially! Though I wasn't entirely surprised at the guy that had his stuff seized, arriving by train from Canada. Some US politician was talking about ALL public transportation being subject to the same kind of security theater as the airports), I'd highly recommend shipping your gear ahead , if you can. Once you get to the US, try to fly as little as possible. The downside is that it isn't just laptops; it's any device that they consider to be "suspicious"...it was my little Behringer mixer that had the jerks in Newark all freaking out. They are VERY loose in their usage of "electronic devices"... It's definitely getting worse but the worst of it is the passive attitude that most of the US citizenry about changing it. Dennis P.S. Atlanta, coming back from Florence by way of Paris a year ago, was a breeze. They seemed to have their act together. http://soundcloud.com/usrsbin http://audiozoloft.com http://usrslashsbin.angrek.com/ On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 8:19 AM, Stephen Goodman <spgoodman@earthlight.net> wrote: > ?Neither I nor my English wife had any trouble at all traveling in and >out > of the US last year. On the last leg home through Jacksonville and >Atlanta > our carry-on goods got looked at by TSA folks, with little delay. We had > the laptop, and stuff I'd gotten in the US like the GR3/GR20, and my > transparent-blue Steinberger Synapse (delightfully carry-on). The male > inspectors really loved looking over the guitar, but I didn't feel >delayed > or threatened in any way. When we were checking our luggage I got the > question about the Synapse: "Is that a firearm?" I had thought up a lot >of > lines to cast forth during being intrusively searched but the searching > never happened, and I didn't see anyone else being pulled aside. > > I can assume therefore that it's possibly the attitude one displays >during > the go-through that might make all the difference, and most likely has an > effect on further trips through the security go-throughs. Make enough >of an > indignant stink about it and there's little doubt there will be a note >made > about it. Additionally, visiting a prisoner in Guantanamo would seem to >by > default require some sort of more-than-regular inspection. This should >not > be a surprise, and I'd be interested to hear any non-third-party stories >LD > members have about such difficulties. > > -----Original Message----- From: Rainer Straschill > Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2011 2:22 PM > To: Looper's Delight Mailing List > Subject: Is the new Stalin African-American? > > >http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/01/15/laptops/index.html > (via @ilovetypography on twitter). > > Any of you had experiences similar to those described in this article > about DHS/TSA proceedings when entering the US (both for US citizens and > others)? > > Sad to say, but the way this looks, this may require us all either to > never enter the US again - or to go back to hardware loopers... > > Rainer > > -- > http://moinlabs.de > Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/moinlabs >